Building a startup in Ireland: The ambition trap

When you build a startup outside of a major hub like San Francisco or London, you are immediately fighting a war on two fronts. The first is the obvious one: building a product people actually want. The second, and the much more subtle one, is fighting the local ceiling on your ambition.

I mean, think about it. In San Francisco, you're surrounded by people who are delusional enough to think they can change the world, and skilled enough to actually do it. Your peer group sets your pace. If everyone around you is running a four-minute mile, you figure out how to run a four-minute mile.

In a smaller ecosystem like Ireland, or Berlin, or Paris - the pace is different. It's comfortable. And honestly? That comfort is lethal.

Here is the reality of building a high-growth company in a small market.

The big fish, small pond problem

There is a lot of "taken-for-granted" wisdom about why you shouldn't build outside a major hub. Investors will tell you the talent isn't there (it is). They'll tell you the capital isn't there (it is, if you know how to look).

But the real risk is internal.

When you are in a smaller hub, it is incredibly easy to set your bar locally. You look around, see you're growing faster than the company down the road, and you think you're winning. You're not. You're just the fastest runner in a slow race.

Your competition isn't the startup in Dogpatch Labs or the company winning the local accelerator pitch night. Your competition is a founder in Palo Alto who has raised $10 million on a slide deck and is moving at a lightning speed.

That's the danger. You can't let your location dictate your velocity.

The comfort of a smaller ecosystem

Now, let's talk about the good stuff. Because there are genuine advantages to building here.

In a major hub, you are competing for everything.

• Talent - you're fighting Google, Meta, and 500 other well-funded technology companies for the same engineers.
• Attention - it's almost impossible to get noticed when everyone is screaming.
• Cost - your runway burns twice as fast.

In Ireland, the math is different.

Startups can attract incredible talent because we aren't just another option; we're often the best option for ambitious people who don't want to be cog #4,000 at a multinational. The loyalty is higher. The tenure is longer.

And the community? In emerging ecosystems, there's this rising-tide-lifts-all-boats energy. People give their time freely. They want to help. They're not trying to monetise every introduction or charge for coffee meetings.

In the major hubs? Help has been institutionalised. Everyone wants to get paid quickly. In San Francisco especially, there's this performative optimism where everyone's bragging about how amazing everything is going. You start wondering if you're the only one who finds this hard.

Smaller communities are more open. More honest. People admit when things are brutal. That matters more than founders realise.

But don't confuse support for validation. Your neighbours might love you, but the market doesn't care where you live.

The valuation gap

Here is a hard truth I learned raising money.

When I pitched American VCs, the feedback was consistent: "Why are you raising so little?" One investor who backed Mercury literally laughed at our pre-seed ask. He said, "This is a $10 million round in the US. Why are you asking for $3 million?"

When I pitched local investors, the feedback was the opposite. "Don't get ahead of yourself." "Maybe raise €1.5 million and prove it out first." "That valuation feels high."

Same company. Same product. Same team. Completely different ceilings on what was possible.

Tactical tip: If you are an ambitious founder outside a major hub, get on a plane. Go to London. Go to Paris. Talk to the Americans. Do not let the size of your local VC's fund dictate the size of your vision.

The fragmented market trap

The biggest structural disadvantage we have isn't capital. It's the market itself.

In the US, you build one product, in one language, with one currency, and you have a TAM of 330 million people.

Europe is 27 member states, multiple languages, and regulatory environments pretending to be a single market.

If you build for the UK, you dominate the UK. Then you try to go to France, and you realise your product doesn't work there. You have to rebuild. Then you go to Germany. Rebuild again.

The pattern plays out constantly. European founder builds a great product. They spend three years winning their home market. They hit a ceiling. They try to expand, but they're too slow. An American competitor raises $50 million, launches in Europe, and buys them.

We don't get the €100 billion exits because we get acquired on the way up.

The constraint that sets you free

So how do you win?

You have to be delusional about your geography. Live in Dublin but operate as if you're global from Day 0.

For Irish founders, this actually comes naturally. We have a domestic market of 4 million people. Nobody starts a tech company here thinking, "I'm going to corner the Irish market." It's too small. We are forced to look at the US or the UK immediately.

That constraint is a gift.

It forces you to build a product that travels. It forces you to ignore borders. It means you never get comfortable enough to get stuck.

Compare that to founders in the UK, France, or Germany. They find a local market, grow fast, become the dominant player domestically, and then can't figure out how to cross borders. They've spent years building a product hyper-localised for one market, and now it doesn't transfer.

Irish founders don't have that luxury. The domestic market is too small to be a trap.

Building here is a trade-off. You get the loyalty, the runway, and the sanity of a smaller ecosystem. But you pay for it with the constant need to manufacture your own pressure.

You have to be the one to say "this isn't fast enough" when everyone around you is clapping.

If you're raising right now and this resonated, we put together a guide on how we approached fundraising - the mistakes, the process, what actually worked.